It’s been a busy week for the UK Gambling Commission (UKGC). Not only have there been crackdowns on gambling advertising standards in the UK, courtesy of the Committee for Advertising Practices (CAP), but the UKGC has also warned operators that they must be more diligent in running “affordability checks” before upgrading their players to any sort of VIP status.
It’s common knowledge that, in general, VIP status depends, above all, on a player’s ability to wager a certain amount of funds in a given time period, and that’s pretty much all there has ever been to it. Aside from the standard checks against money laundering, there hasn’t been much more than the bare minimum of scrutiny. This week’s announcement spells the end of that antiquated system in the UK.
Customers have spoken out to the media and to charities about their experiences being sent numerous communications, as part of VIP programmes, encouraging them to bet more, more than they could in some cases afford. One former VIP customer spoke to the BBC about feeling “groomed” by a certain betting site and running up debts of £30,000. Players upgraded to VIP status often receive, along with various freebies, offers for bonus schemes which become activated once they bet a certain amount.
Sarah Harrison, director of the UKGC, stated that “Operators have lots of data on these customers, and this is the data they use to identify VIP customers in the first place… So [they should] use this data like cancelled withdrawals, failed deposits (and) people trying to use a range of different payment methods to protect consumers, not just to facilitate their gambling. What we are very clear about is that safeguarding consumers is not optional and rewarding customer loyalty through VIP programmes must not be at the risk of gambling-related harm… Operators have a real responsibility here.”
So what steps can operators take to ensure better customer due diligence, above and beyond what Sarah Harrison outlined in the above quote? One option is to upgrade or outsource their analytics to better utilise existing customer data to detect those at risk of becoming problem gamblers. Another would be to engage with a data consortium, which are designed to help detect fraud and money laundering activities and can even allow users to flag up their own concerns about third parties.
